Essential Kitchen Tools
When working with a budget, it might be hard to make a call on what is really a necessity and what you can live without. Here we'll try to list the basic necessities and then a few things you should make a stretch for if you can, and we'll try to etablish what the bare minimum should be. If budget is an issue, consider buying used as well. Your local craigslist will often have very good deals that can't be beat. Sometimes, you may even be able to find equipment for free! Other, less frequent sources include yard sales and restaurant closing sales. Knives Knives come in tiers. At the lowest tier is Chinese stuff like Ikea, CCK, and the stuff sold at the gas station. Next level up is German. These were once considered the finest cutlery in the world, from approximately 1910 (when Sheffield's steel production went into a steep decline), and the 1960s when cooks began to discover French cutlery. Modern day German cutlery is usually made of a highly resilient steel called X50CrMoV15, which is designed to withstand abuse by children and inexperienced home cooks. When your grandpa gripes that stainless knives are shit and belong in the trash, he's thinking of this steel. Many new homeowners postpone the purchase of screwdrivers and crowbars because their Wusthof knives can be used for this purpose with no detrimental effect. The next highest level of knife is French. While there are now some chinese-made knives being sold under French sounding names, the Elephant brand Thiers Issard Sabatier Au Carbone knives made between the 1960s and the 1980s are considered some of the finest European cooking knives ever made. Modern knives from the same series use slightly inferior steel but are still highly respected. The finest modern knives are generally Japanese. Using a variety of high tech super steels from Japan and Sweden, the Japanese are setting a new standard in professional kitchen cutlery. The best lines for general purpose cooking include MAC Ultimate, Shun, Tojiro DP, Misono UX-10, Keijiro Doi's Suisin Hayate Light, and Shigefusa knives produced by Iizuka Tokifusa (the jury is still out on the work produced by his two sons, who have been working for less than twenty five years each) Avoid knife sets. Many of the knives are rendered essentially useless by having a few, high quality knives. You can leave those on the curb or give them to your friends (tradition holds that a knife given as a gift will sever the ties that bind) *Chef's Knife Here's an acceptable low-priced knife to get you started. If this is the only knife you own, it'll be enough. * Higher end: Here is a much better knife for a serious chef. If your elders manage to respond when you bow to them, you need this knife. *Paring Knife: *Boning Knife: Much blood has been shed between the honesuki faction and the garasuki faction. In reality either is fine as long as you don't get one of those baka gaijin flexible boning knives. They are truly for the plebbest of the plebs. Like seriously you might as well just go to MacDonalds. *Serrated Knife: If you are too much of a lazy unskilled turd burglar to keep your shit in proper working order, get one of these. I hear cutco is pretty good. A sharp knife is your best friend in the kitchen as it means less force is needed to make your cuts, thus, you will have better control. Combined with basic knife techiqnue and you should rarely, if ever, cut yourself. If you decide to take the plunge and purchase a high quality steel knife, you should invest in at least the basic knife maintenance and sharpening equipment. The basics consist of: *Knife steel - these come in several varieities ** Grooved steel - These should only be used on the aforementioned German knives. They essentially create microserrations which make your Wusthof function like a very fine toothed hacksaw. Since X50CrMoV15 isn't capable of holding a fine enough edge for a long enough time, german knife owners rightly swear by their grooved steels. ** Ceramic rod - Not a true steel, but effectively works like a round section 2000-3000 JIS grit whetstone. These are best for Japanese knives but can also be used for French knives. Once the edge from your last stone session begins to degrade beyond the point where the smooth steel or the stop will help, a ceramic rod can help postpone the inevitable. ** Borosilicate rod - These are essentially impossible to find these days unless you are in Keith Degrau's inner circle, so forget it. You can't have one, cry moar. ** Smooth steel - These are great if you are some kind of hoarder, but most normalfags use a charged strop. *Whetstone(fine and coarse grit) ** Poorfags should go with synthetic stones. While not as good as naturally quarried toishi from the archipelago of Japan, they are considerably more affordable. An acceptable set of synthetic stones can be assembled for well under $500 *** 1x 200-500 JIS *** 1x 800-1200 JIS *** 1x 2000 JIS *** 1x 4000 JIS *** 1x 8000 JIS **** Beyond 8000 JIS is getting into autism territory, but if you are moderately serious about knives you will want a 16k and a 32k stone ** Natural stones are best if you care about your knives. *** Heavy edge repair should be done with synthetics up to 500 *** Amakusa Binsui-to or Ikarashi-to for initial edge creation *** Hakka Ao-to or Saeki-to for refinement *** Nakayama Ki-ita or Asagi for finishing ** A good horse leather strop (Kanayama or equivalent) * Or if you are dirt poor, here's a whetstone that covers both grits. While the initial investment and the practice required to sharpen properly may seem daunting, in the long run, it can save you a lot of money(and fingers!) Here's a video that shows one way to sharpen with whetstones. Many also like to strop the blade after sharpening. This polishes and hones the blade further. While you may spend extra money for proper stropping equipment, the cardboard back of a legal pad or the back of an old leather belt can substitute in a pinch. That being said, you still have NO excuse for a dull knife. I wouldn't advise this for a nice knife, but it gets the job done. Get a John Boos or Boardsmith board unless you are a pleb, in which case, get hard rubber from a kitchen supply memestore. If you are too much of a socially awkward sperg to talk to the kitchen supply guys, just get a bamboo board and ruin your knives, it's not like you were going to do anything good with them anyway. Other *Large metal mixing bowl *Silicone Pan Liner if you intend on baking *Sheet tray(one full-26"x18", one half-18"x13") *Roasting pan *Small mixing bowl *Tupperwares/Deli quart and pint containers for storage. *Ziplocs *Foil(great for storage and hastening cleanup) *Plastic wrap Pots and Pans Again, avoid larger sets to avoid getting useless/filler pieces. In addition, you'll find buying one decent pot and one decent pan is better than a set of crappy pans. The goal here is to find maybe one pot and one pan to start, both with thick, heavy bottoms. The thicker the pan, the more evenly distributed the heat will be and then less likely your food is to be scorched. Nonstick pans are often the cheapest pans and easiest to use, however care must be taken not to scratch it. Use wooden or silicon tools with them excusively. They are also make creating fond (used in making sauces, gravies, and stews) impossible, as fond is made when food sticks to the bottom of the pan. Stainless steel and thicker anonidized(non-reactive) aluminum pans are more versatile, but make cooking eggs a miserable task. Stainless steel pans are best when layered with aluminum/copper as the stainless steel is nonreactive, but has poor heat conduction. The layers of aluminum or copper make up for that. Cast iron pans offer great heat retention, are extremely inexpensive, but are also extremely heavy. They also require some light maintenance. Acidic foods may also leech iron if left in the pan too long. However, many consider this pan invaluable for searing meats and making the elusive and infamous, perfect steak. Enameled iron is demigod tier. Le Creuset and Staub are contenders for the throne. Lodge is pretty much pleb and I seriously hope you don't do this. The best pans are copper pans, although, they are extremely expensive and require some maintenance. Anything using "copper layers" or "copper cladding" is shit, don't buy it. Copper lined with something else on the inside (stainless or tin) is god tier though. Note: If you have a tight budget, just get one nonstick pan and one aluminum pot. *Nonstick pan Here's a great ovensafe (to 350F) nonstick for $25 *Aluminum pan Here's a great ovensafe (to 550F) aluminum pan for $20 *Small pot Here's a copper-clad 1-quart saucepan for $14 *Large pot Here's a great oven-safe (to 550F) 5.5 quart pot for $25 **For estimating the size of a good pot, you want to go with about one quart per person per meal. Or, if it's just yourself, you can cook off a week's worth of soup in one batch with a good 5 quart or so sized pot. *Cast iron skillet(10"-12") Here's a 12" for $20 **Here's an 8" for $10 *Dutch Oven - Optional but useful, can often be substituted with a cast iron skillet Tools Bolded items represent objects you can't live without, unbolded objects are extremely useful but can be improvised using other objects you already have. *'Side Towels' / Pot holder / Oven Mit / Old Shirts / object for grabbing hot things out of an oven *'Bottle opener/corkscrew' *'Can opener' *Colander(immensely useful if you eat a lot of pasta) *'Cutting board' (many suggest one for meat and for one non-meat products) Bamboo or Plastic -- NEVER GLASS *'Dry and Wet measuring cups/spoons' *'Ladle' *'Large wooden or Silicone spoon' *Salt and pepper grinders *'Spatula' *Spider/slotted spoon *Tongs *Vegetable Peeler(Y-shaped peelers tend to give better control over other models) *Whisk Extras If you don't know what an item is, chances are you don't need it right away. However, if you intend to delve deeper into the world of cooking, a few of these extra tools can help you be much more efficient, precise, and accurate in the kitchen. *Box grater *Blender/Immersion blender *Food processor *Rectal thermometer Here's a <$15 digital thermometer that works great. Buy this and you should never have dry meat again. *Microplane/zester *Mortar and pestle *Kitchen timer *Pasta machine *Pressure cooker *Scale *Silicone baking mat/parchment paper. These two are often interchangeable, however, silicone mat's are reusable. *Slow cooker *Spice/Coffee grinder Here's a ~$20 grinder that will work great. If' you're serious about coffee or love fresh spices, this is a must have. Though it's not necessary, it's recommended to have a dedicated coffee and a spice grinder to prevent flavor contamination. *Stand/Hand mixer *Microwave **Quick note about choosing microwaves: the component that actually does the microwaving are all made by the same company--the casing is what differs from model to model. Often when you find poor reviews for a microwave, what they say is "It worked great for six months and then just stopped working." This applies to pretty much every model I've seen. That's just a risk assosiated with microwaves, don't let that particular grievance put you off of choosing a microwave. **Microwaves sap the life force from all foods, especially organic produce and meats. The least affected foods include tap water and frozen Trader Joe's dinners. In general if you eat quality ingredients, leftovers should be either reheated on a gas stove, or preferably discarded. Hygiene Y-weh has revealed to us through scripture that certain ingredients, when combined, make Him very angry. For instance, milk and meat should never be combined under any circumstances. This is actually more complicated than it sounds, because utensils or surfaces used to handle milk can cause milk atoms to touch meat, and vice versa. While experts have shown that heating a utensil with a blowtorch destroys the dangerous residue that would make Y-weh very angry were it to come into contact with the wrong food, the easiest thing to do is keep entirely separate work areas for dairy and meat. Remember that utensils include not just forks and knives, but also ovens and other work surfaces. If in doubt, burn down your entire house and start over. Alternately, many people have chosen to renounce carnism altogether. This not only makes it easier to follow His rules, but it also prevents the vile practice of animal slavery.